Kat-Lew to spend $35G on search for superintendent

LEWISBORO – The Katonah-Lewisboro school board has approved a $35,000 contract with an Illinois-based search firm to find a candidate to succeed Superintendent Paul Kreutzer, who abruptly left the district in January.

Kreutzer left his job less than a week after the school board voted to shutter the Lewisboro Elementary School.

The board paid Kreutzer $90,000 as a buyout to avoid litigation and cited "irreconcilable differences with regard to the vision for and day-to-day leadership of the school district" when it announced the uncoupling.

In March, the school board appointed John Goetz, then interim John Jay High School principal, to lead the district for the coming school year.

Interim Katonah -Lewisboro Superintendent John Goetz(Photo: File)

The school board received responses from six executive search firms and interviewed three.

Over the next several weeks, representatives from Hazard Young Attea & Associates will be collaborating with the Board of Education, school administrators and community members to assess the specific needs of the district and identify the qualifications sought in the candidates that will be considered, according to a statement from the district.

"We are pleased to have found a consultant team with deep experience in education, a nuanced understanding of high performing schools, and a successful track record placing superintendents in Westchester County," said school board President Marjorie Schiff in a statement. "We are looking forward to finding a long-term, permanent superintendent who will be a good fit for the district."

The search consultants will make a presentation at a board meeting early this fall, Schiff said.

John Kopicki, a superintendent at Forest City Regional schools in northeastern Pennsylvania, who had been chosen by the Mahopac board in April after a long search by the firm said he couldn't accept the position for "personal" reasons.

In June, the school board picked Brian D. Monahan, an educator with a career spanning schools in Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties, to serve as Mahopac's interim schools chief for the 2014-15 year.

The Greenburgh district might also be looking for a new schools chief after placing Superintendent Ronald O. Ross on administrative leave. A federal lawsuit brought by a principal, four teachers and three other school employees alleges that Ross created a hostile work environment by using bigoted language.